


Questions We Call Home

by ScotlandEvander



Series: Shattered [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anger, Angst, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 07:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScotlandEvander/pseuds/ScotlandEvander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back and forth, up and down. What was wrong with him lately? He was overflowing with emotions. Emotions were weak! They clouded judgement. Now was not the time to get all emotional. </p><p>Emotions still swelled within. </p><p>“He said the Muggle’s name was Riddle, Black!” Tom shouted in a burst of suppressed rage, anger, and longing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questions We Call Home

**Disclaimer: Portions of dialouge come from _Half Blood Pirnce_ , written by JKR. “Shattered” is by Trading Yesterday. (The song Atlanta is singing during the conversation is the song she’s writing, hence why the lyrics are a bit changed up, but the orginal song was written by someone else not me.) “DuckTales Theme Song” is written by Mark Mueller. Once again, if you know it, I do not own it.**

* * *

“Is that it?”

Her tone of voice said it all. 

Disgusting.  

Tom swallowed, not looking down at Black. She hadn’t needed to come with him. Grinding his back teeth together he stared at the shack that sat in the clearing in the corpse of trees. He startled when he felt a small hand take his. He looked down to find the brat staring up at him with her huge amber eyes. She threw her too long fringe out of her eyes and studied him carefully. 

“We can leave.”

“No. I have to go in,” Tom snapped, turning his head back in the direction of the shack. 

“Did you know there’s this game Muggles in the future play called MASH?”

“No. Of course I don’t,” Tom sneered.

She still had his hand. 

Why was he not pushing her away and getting this over with? 

“Well, it’s this weird game you play with paper and is very juvenile and would drive you bonkers, but the last time I played it I was destined to live in a shack. MASH stands for Mansion, Apartment, Shack or House. You find out where you live, what career you’ll have out of your choices and who’ll you’re marry. I always got the shack. People thought it was funny because a Black would never live in a shack.”

Tom gave her a dark look. She smiled at him. She tugged him a bit and he tore his hand from her grasp. For some reason this did not bother her in the least and she continued to walk as if nothing had happened. 

At least she wasn’t humming. Or singing. 

They approached the door, which had a dead, rotting snake nailed to the door. A horrible smell reached Tom’s nose. It reeked. The whole placed smelled of mold, rotting food and filth. 

“Well, I’m so glad I wore my best clothes,” Black muttered. “Are you sure your glorious pureblood relatives live here?”

Tom did not answer.

“Is there anyone in there?” Black asked, getting on her tiptoes to peek in the dirty window. She snorted in distaste. She fell back onto her heels, looking over at Tom. 

“Stay out here.”

Black opened her mouth to protest, but Tom gave her his harshest look. It was a face that usually put fear into people. Black nodded and sighed. She carefully pulled out an odd object contraption that gave her light out of her pocket and took a step closer to the shack till she was leaning against the outer wall. She reached into her coat pocket (she’d had Dumbledore or something transfigure a cloak into a Muggle style coat with never ending pockets) and pulled out a small lantern. She handed it to Tom, then took a candle out. She grinned in the fading sunlight and licked her fingers.

“Watch this,” she said, getting that odd mischievous look about her. 

Putting her spit soaked fingers on the wick, she pulled up and the candle lit. Tom stared at her.

“How did you do that?” he demanded.

She smirked. This shocked him further, as it was a smirk worthy of a Slytherin. 

“Magic.”

She opened the lamp and stuck the candle in. 

“Off you go, me boyo,” she said in a very thick Irish accent. 

Tom narrowed his eyes but said nothing in response. He knocked loudly on the door, eyeing Black out of the corner of his eye. 

_Why could she not just stay at Hogwarts? Why did she follow me?_

Annoyance rose up in him, as no response came to his knock and his so call dear sister was standing off to the side, witnessing this horrifying, disgusting shack. At least she was finally silent. 

Tom glanced at Black once more before deciding to open the door. Swallowing and taking a deep breath, as he assumed the inside would smell worse than the outside, Tom pushed the door open. It made a very loud creaking noise as he opened it. Tom took a few steps into the hovel, his eyes sweeping over the small room. It was utterly….revolting. The floor had a layer of grime so thick Tom assumed no one had thought of cleaning it in centuries. The ceiling was covered in thick cobwebs and there was molding and rotting food out on the table. There were dirty pots all over the table, like the inhabitants failed to understand the concept of washing dishes. 

Behind him, Tom heard Black gag. Looking behind him, she was still out of sight. 

The smell must be strong. Breathing through his mouth, Tom held the lamp up higher, as the only light inside came from one lone candle. There was a weak fire going in the fireplace, but the light it gave off was pathetic. 

“YOU!” bellowed a voice from somewhere near the fire. 

Holding the lamp up again, he noticed there was a man in the room. He staggered up, knocking the many empty bottles in his lap to the ground. They hit the floor as he drunkenly staggered upright.

“YOU!” 

The deranged, ugly man whose eyes weren’t even pointing in the right directions, hurtled wobbly at Tom, wand and knife held aloft. 

“ **Stop** ,” Tom snapped in Parseltongue.

This stopped the man in his tracks and he skidded into the table, sending the contents of the deplorable object crashing to the floor. Curling his lip, Tom took a step backwards. Tearing his eyes off the ground, he looked at the man, his blank mask of indifference firmly in place on his face. 

“ **You speak it?** ”

“ **Yes, I speak it,”** Tom answered, slowly moving forward. He allowed the door to close behind him, further locking Black out of the conversation. He doubted she’d understand it either way if it continued in Parseltounge. He was amazed he hadn’t heard a shocked gasp when he began speaking. Most people did not respond favorably when they heard Parseltounge for the first time. 

Once the fresh air was cut off, the smell inside was ten times worst. Disgust and disappointment swirled around within Tom as he continued to stare at the man who leaned heavily against the table. 

“ **Where is Marvolo?”** Tom demanded.

“ **Dead** ,” the man answered. **“Died years ago, didn’t he?”**

Damn it. 

“ **Who are you?** ”

**“I’m Morfin, ain’t I?”**

**“Marvolo’s son?”**

Well, at least the Gaunts hadn’t died out, Tom thought. 

**“‘Course I am, then…”**

The man, Morfin Gaunt, pushed his greasy, dirty hair out of his face. This action allowed the light from the lamp to catch on a black-stoned ring on Morfin’s finger. Tom’s eyes locked on the ring. He felt possession rise up within his soul, pulling him towards the ring. 

“ **I thought you were that Muggle. You look mighty like that Muggle.** ”

Tom snapped to attention, looking at Morfin, who was still holding his hair out of his dirty face to better see Tom. 

**“What Muggle?”**

**“That Muggle what my sister took a fancy to, that Muggle what lives in the big house over the way,”** Morfin informed Tom, spitting on the floor rather randomly. 

This was his uncle? This was the last pureblood descendant of the mightily Salazar Slytherin?

**“You look right like him. Riddle.”**

Tom’s insides froze. 

**“But he’s older now, in’e? He’s older’n you, now I think on it…”**

Tom stared at the man as he swayed back and forth a bit, looking dazed and drunk. He was holding onto the table for support, no longer holding his hair out of his face. 

 **“He come back, see,”** Morfin dumbly added.

Silence fell as Tom gazed at Morfin. He faintly heard singing. He suppressed a sigh. He knew Black would not be able to remain silent for long. Soon he felt a caress come across his face, travel down and settle on the palm of his hand before it wrapped itself around his hand. 

_“As reason clouds my eyes, with splendor fading.”_

Tom appraised Morfin. The man’s magic felt weak. Very weak. Almost non existent and it was not trained or molded. It felt almost as wild as a young child. Black was stronger than this so called pureblood royalty. 

_“A reflection of a lie, will keep me waiting with love gone, for so long.”_

“ **Do you hear singin’?** ”Morfin asked, looking confused. Tom knew Morfin no doubt felt the magic in the air caused by Black’s singing, even it if was aimed at Tom. He could still feel her magic wrapped around his free hand. He tried to shake it off, but it hung on stubbornly. 

Tom took a few steps closer to Morfin. “ **Riddle came back?** ”

_“And this day’s ending is the proof of time killing all the faith I had, knowing that faith was all I had.”_

“ **Ar, he left her, and served her right, marrying filth!”** Morfin spat, spitting on the ground at Tom’s feet. 

Tom didn’t back up, but stood strong. He felt a swell of magic burst, but couldn’t pick out if it was his or Black’s. 

_“And I’ve lost who I am, and I can’t understand…”_

“ **Robbed us, mind, before she ran off!”**

_“Why my heart is so broken.”_

**“Where’s the locket, eh? Where is Slytherin’s locket?”** Morfin demanded. 

Tom froze. Locket? Slytherin had a locket and his mother had it? Keeping his eyes locked on Morfin, who was working himself into a rage, his ears only heard Black outside the window, her melodic voice somehow allowing him to keep his anger at bay so he could think clearly. 

Ironic.

_“Rejecting all I thought to be true, lifeless words carried on. And with all I know is that the end’s beginning.”_

**“Dishonored us, she did, that little slut! And who’re you, coming here and asking questions about all that? It’s over, innit…It’s over…”**

_“Who I am from the start, take me home to my heart. Let me go and I will run, I will not be silent.”_

Tom stared at the man, his uncle. His blood-relative. His living link to Slytherin, the so called pureblood who wasn’t filth. 

_“All this time spent in vain, wasted years, wasted gain.”_

Morfin looked away, staggering slightly against the table again, upsetting the contents of the table again. 

“ _All is lost, hope remains and your war’s not over_.”

Morfin lost his grip on the table and crashed loudly into the it, bringing everything down on top of him. Tom curled his lip in disgust. The door banged open behind him. Glancing over his shoulder he noticed Black standing in the doorway, her odd light contraption out and pointed at him. 

“I thought I told you to remain outside.”

“Well, after the hissing shouting stopped and things began crashing, I decided to risk it,” Black snapped. “I might throw up.”

“Stay outside.”

“What do you plan on doing, Tee?” Black asked, ignoring Tom’s order.

Tom set the lamp on the ground. He bent down, resting on the back of his heels, studying his foul uncle. Sneering he began to think. He had come to find his wizarding relatives. He was sorely disappointed with what he had found. Other than he could get that ring— which should be on his finger, not this execrable excuse for a wizard— the trip might have been wasted except for one key thing Morfin had said: Riddle.  

“He mentioned there was a Muggle in the village who looks like me.”

Tom felt Black’s magic rather than heard her as she moved to be closer to him. Because of this, he wasn’t shocked when he felt her small, warm hand on his shoulder. 

“ _Might solve a mystery, or rewrite history_ ,” she sung quietly. Tom felt the crackle of magic across his skin as a warning. 

He stood up, harshly knocking Black backwards. He was at a junction, a turning point in the road. Black continued to hum for a moment. Tom stared into the darkness of the shack blankly. 

He thought about the actual words Black had just sung. Did she know something about his Muggle father? He glanced at her, she was still humming softly and not looking at him. He turned away from her to think. 

He had no reason to go searching for his Muggle relatives. He wanted nothing to do with them. 

“ _When it seems they’re heading for final curtain, good deduction never fails, that’s for certain. The worst of messes becomes successes.”_

Tom turned sharply and stared down at Black. She had a hard glint in her amber eyes. The light caught them just so, they flashed. 

Suddenly, his conviction wavered. 

“What song is that?”

“The theme song to a cartoon called ‘DuckTales.’”

“Duck tails? What do duck tails have to do with anything you just sung?”

“Tales, like in stories. It’s a cartoon about a bunch of ducks who solve mysteries and go on adventures,” Black explained. 

Tom stormed out of the shack. The smell and lack of air was making him feel like the walls were closing in on him. He had almost seriously considered not doing what he knew was required.  

“What are you going to do?” Black called. 

He stalked further into the clearing in front of the shack, ramming his hands through his hair. He didn’t care he was messing up his carefully styled hair. He yanked on his hair, the pain clearing his head a bit. 

Back and forth, up and down. What was wrong with him lately? He was overflowing with emotions. Emotions were weak! They clouded judgement. Now was not the time to get all emotional. 

Emotions still swelled within. 

“He said the Muggle’s name was Riddle, Black!” Tom shouted in a burst of suppressed rage, anger, and longing. 

The sun had finally vanished, leaving an inky sky in its wake.  Stars were beginning to come out, but the moon had yet to rise, so the clearing was bathed in darkness. To Tom, it felt comforting. He felt himself begin to calm. 

“Oh,” he heard from behind him. 

He turned sharply, whipping his wand out and aiming it at Black. His fingers inched to curse her, to make her wither in pain because life was not fair. 

His father was a Muggle.

Black was a sodding pureblood. Her family was ancient, proud, rich and she looked NORMAL. Her family had mansions, lands, jewels and gold by the bucketful. 

His mother was a pureblood and lived in rags. Her family was pour, drunk and filthy. The conditions she lived in were deplorable. The forsaken orphanage was better than the shack. 

“ _You lost who you thought you were, and you can’t understand,”_ Black sung very quietly. Her voice danced over the summer breeze towards him, the words stabbing him in the chest, tightening around him in a hug. “ _Why your heart is broken, rejecting all love without love gone wrong, lifeless words carry on.”_

His wand began to shake. 

_“But I know, all I know, there’s light at the end. Who you are from the start, take you home to your heart. Let yourself go and run, you will not be silent.”_

Tom tracked Black as she closed the distance between them. 

“ _All this time spent in vain, wasted years, wasted gain. All was lost, hope remains, and your life’s not over. There’s a light, there’s the sun, taking all the shattered ones.”_

Black was now standing in front of him, reaching up to close her hand around the tip of his wand. 

“ _To the place you belong, and you will conquer and you’ve lost who you are and you can’t understand why your heart is so broken, rejecting all love without love gone wrong, lifeless words carry on. But I know all I know is the you’re life’s beginning_.”

She pressed the wand tip into her head, as that was the height he was holding it at. Something within shifted and snapped at the sight of Black at the end of his wand. The anger and hate boiling within him wishing to pour out of his wand into tangible pain withered away. He felt the magic crackle over his skin, seeping through the cracks in his amor and settling within his mind, calming it down further. 

Black, while an annoying eleven-year-old (or was she twelve now?) brat, was powerful and unique. She _saw_ magic. She controlled her magic in a way Tom had never witness before. And she was naturally darker than the average person.

Just like him. 

Like that ugly ring on Morfin’s finger, Tom wanted to possess Black. He wanted her to be what she was pretending, wanted her by his side, using her talents to further his own power, rather than annoy him. 

He wanted her to do what she was doing to him at the moment for the rest of his life. 

She stopped singing and fell silent. Her magic fell away from him and he took a deep breath. 

“T.M.?”

He lowered the wand, his arm hanging limply at his side. He stared down at her in the growing moonlight. He debated for a moment. 

“I want to see him at least.”

He would come back later and eradicate the worthless Muggles. 

“Are we going to be peeping toms?” she joked lightly.

“Sweetheart, don’t make Tom jokes,” he scolded in a stiff yet somehow playful tone. He looked back at the hovel. “I’m going to make sure he’s not dead.”

“Okay. I’m going to stand here and hum quietly to myself.” 

Tom went into the shack and made sure his uncle was breathing. The man was. Tom spotted the wand on the ground and snatched it up. The man did not deserve a wand. Slipping the wand into his pocket, Tom eyed the ugly ring. He pried it off the bloated finger. He moved to the lone candle and studied the ring in the meager light. It was ugly, to say the least, with an odd looking coat of arms. Frowning, Tom thought he’d seen the coat of arms somewhere, but was unable to place it. Annoyed, he pocketed the ring. Turning sharply, he strode out of the cabin. Black was waiting. He grabbed her hand and dragged her towards the road. 


End file.
